A rounding problem with population

[Loren]

Long ago I took a province with 600 people in it. My dominion is long since imposed, growth 3.

It's still got 600 people in it.

Obviously, it's not growing enough per turn and the growth is being rounded down to zero.

[MaxWilson]

The gene pool shrank too much, and now everybody is related and can't marry each other.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Well, it only counts in 10s, it's not exactly rounding. The pop is actually counted in memory as 60, and is not increasing by 1, or even .5 and therefor won't go up. You'd need about 850 pop to get it to grow even with G3, it looks like.

[Loren]

JimMorrison said:
Well, it only counts in 10s, it's not exactly rounding. The pop is actually counted in memory as 60, and is not increasing by 1, or even .5 and therefor won't go up. You'd need about 850 pop to get it to grow even with G3, it looks like.

But it *IS* rounding--the fraction is being rounded down to zero as the field can't hold it.

I think this should be special-cased: If the growth rate is positive the population should grow by at least the minimum possible amount.

Note that this would also address LA Ermor, LA R'yleh and Hinnom depleted provinces.

[Agrajag]

Hardly, as +10 per month would still take 85 turns (7 years) to reach just 850 (where Growth 3 can first make an influence according to you guys.)

[thejeff]

What happens with population decrease?

Is that also the same way, so a population that would drop by less than 10 doesn't drop at all?
Or does the decrease round up, so it drops by 10 every month?

[Loren]

Agrajag said:
Hardly, as +10 per month would still take 85 turns (7 years) to reach just 850 (where Growth 3 can first make an influence according to you guys.)

It wouldn't make a big difference but it just seems so wrong that a depopulated province doesn't ever recover. People would move in!

[Hoplosternum]

Agrajag said:
Hardly, as +10 per month would still take 85 turns (7 years) to reach just 850 (where Growth 3 can first make an influence according to you guys.)

I don't really agree Agrajag. Not with the maths that I'm sure you have spot on But the problem is completely depleted provinces which cannot ever again produce even a 1 resource mage. Even a tiny population (enough to give a few resources or even just one) would be a huge boost. Often being able to build a unit (scout/ mage/ leader - even over a few turns) is what you want out of a province rather than a troop factory. The pop death does not remove the indi mage sites but it can make them worthless, especuially if surrounded by other zero pop provinces.

So a change to making growth scales give the minimum population growth would be a huge and IMHO welcome change.

Of course you are correct that until 850 pop is reached the difference between growth 3 and growth 1 will be zero, but that is not what is so bad about the death dom of Ermor et al. Nor what is good about growth 3.

Growth 3 only really pays off in big pop provinces. A pop 20000 province becoming a 40000 one (after X turns) gives a big income boost. But a 2000 to 4000 jump is still not giving a lot extra even if in percentage terms the growth is the same.

[PvK]

Loren wrote: "it just seems so wrong that a depopulated province doesn't ever recover. People would move in!"

Pre-industrial non-nomadic people didn't move very often. As in, peasants generally spend their entire lives within a day or two's walk of where they were born.

What are the existing ways to increase population in Dom 3? Offhand I can think of:

* Growth scale, as discussed here.
* Random events, which are more likely in situations... such as having positive growth scale.
* Wishing for population.

[B0rsuk]

PvK said:
Loren wrote: "it just seems so wrong that a depopulated province doesn't ever recover. People would move in!"

Pre-industrial non-nomadic people didn't move very often. As in, peasants generally spend their entire lives within a day or two's walk of where they were born.

True, but
1) non-nomadic people existed. It seems silly to rule out nomadic peoples in early era, at least. And even if you assume a strictly stationary society of late era, there are still
- bandits, outlaws (depopulated areas would be better for a hideout)
- gypsies
- bards
- beggars
- various homeless people. By the way, it wasn't ALL about settlements in medieval ages, at least not in Poland. Owning land meant power - true. Land can't really burn down like a windmill or workshop may. Everyone wanted to own land, but if you couldn't you could still work as a worker on somebody's land. And they wouldn't pay you for sitting idle, so you'd have to move on once the harvest is over. Hopefully someone else would have other crops, or other work to do.

Unlike peasants, townsfolk were technically free to move around. Artisans and guilds in particular would sense an opportunity in being the sole supplier of a small population. No or little competition etc.

2) Even if we assume people don't move at all, there would be more room for everyone who's left. More resources, food, space. So there should be a population boom, just like there typically is after a war. Speaking in ecology terms, there's environment capacity. It works primarily for animals, because humans are able to work around since the Neolithic Revolution (transition from hunters/gatherers to agriculture/livestock ). But humans would still benefit.

Overall, it looks like you're looking for an excuse to justify current mediocrity of growth scale.
I think it's too late to change it now. But it would be sweet if population growth was sort-of inversely proportional to current population size. So a depopulated province should grow much faster provided there's a growth scale. This would both make growth scale more useful and the game more realistic. Win-Win.